The Avengers Abide

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When a film like Avengers: Endgame comes out, it starts to feel like we're living in some sort of fascist state in which even the slightest whisper of a spoiler is punishable by death. In general, I'd say that I'm against any form of fascism to the point that I get pissed off when even the self-scan in the supermarket tells me to remove my shopping from the bagging area. I mean what the fuck does it think it's doing, telling me what to do. We don't live in the fucking Matrix yet you robot-prick! However, in this case, my only regret is that spoiling things literally isn't punishable by death as I would quite happily cave any perpetrators head in with a fucking rock and then shit into their skull as a warning to everybody else. So I won't spoil anything major here if you haven't seen it. I'll probably talk about the bit in the movie in which Tony and Steve die of AIDS and why I felt it was right to graphically show how they got it. But I don't think that counts as a spoiler because we all saw it coming right? We certainly saw them coming in that scene anyway. So I guess I will be talking a little bit about what happens and so if you haven't seen it then you know.. piss off.

Kick My Brains Around The Floor

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Atomic Blonde's stench is so thick with the intoxicating funk of the 1980's that it feels like you've fallen asleep on a post-rave David Hasselhoff and then suffocated to death on the fumes of his hair spray. From one half of the directing duo behind the unquestionably brilliant John Wick, you might assume that this film will equally be a Charlize Theron-shaped kick to the bollocks. And you'd be right. However Atomic Blonde is also a German-set espionage adventure that takes place as the Berlin wall looks as likely to fall as a piss-head on a pogo-stick before he slurs the condemning phrase of, “wanna see something cool?” As such the story here isn't quite as streamlined as John Wick's “get the fuck away from my dog” simplicity with this sister film including a hint of John le Carré to go with its kick-ass John Woo-iness. Theron plays Broughton, an MI6 agent tasked with retrieving a stolen list containing the names of every single undercover agent that's currently on active duty. Or as the script, in our post-Mission: Impossible, Post-Skyfall world should probably have said, “insert cliched MacGuffin here”.

So What Is Spectre Really About?

The dead are alive. These are the opening words that hammer on screen and begin James Bond's latest post-shag, pre-drink murder-sprees. At the start of Spectre, 007 is off-duty in Mexico and chasing down a fat foreign guy that he promptly kills for no good or obvious reason. Maybe this is an unofficial mission or maybe it's simply how an 'imperialistic right-wing fuck-face' chooses to relax. Either way it essentially kick-starts the latest story, dealing with the fate of MI6, the circumstances of Bond's childhood, and the threat of a sinister organisation that may even be more evil than the tax-dodging Starbucks. As a fully-obsessed fan of the series, I once received a poker chip from the casino in Skyfall for Christmas that a friend suggested I show to every single girl I meet. If I ever find one that recognises it as being from that film then apparently it's proof that she's the one for me and I should propose on the spot. Well, the same test could sort of be applied to any friendship with this entire film. The question is “What do those opening four words refer to?” If the answer is "Sum of da people in da opening Day of da Dead sequence look lyk zombies” then you're to get the fuck out of my life. As anybody with at least three brain cells will be able to deduce, the correct answer is “The filmmakers are literally spelling out the film's theme for all of the thick people in the audience”.

Skyfall Is Where We Start

Being the miserable cunt that I am, I'm obviously not a fan of special occasions. I could rant all day about my hatred of jolly, merry Shitmas but the rest are just as bad. All of the other yearly occasions were simply invented to make insecure people feel loved at the benefit of card companies. I hate to sound like a twat but if I have to pick a side, I'd rather be labelled as a 'cynic' than be a dead-eyed member of team gullible. Despite all that however, there is one thing that I look forward to more than anything else and that's the release of a new James Bond film. If commercialised affection isn't for me then you can damn well bet that watching a misogynist shooting a Russian in the face is. I think that everybody should also agree that after fifty years and twenty-three official films, the latest adventure to feature one of Britain's finest contributions to pop-culture really is something that should be celebrated. Given a choice between a birthday or 007's latest premier, I honestly prefer the one that doesn't make me feel a year closer to fucking death.

Because of this, Skyfall has a lot of expectation to live up to. Not only has it got several generations of film lovers eager to see it but it's been four years since the release of Quantum of Solace. I'm a punctual chap in general who treats lateness with such a level of fascism that for every minute waiting for someone who is late, I spend it planning the next holocaust. Considering that Bond has had me waiting for approximately one thousand, four hundred and fifty days, that suave cunt had better have a fucking good excuse. As it turns out, he bloody well does.

Skyfall begins with Bond trying to salvage a mission gone wrong. Somebody has stolen a hard-drive which contains a list of all known working field agents and M wants it back. Bond therefore gives chase in an attempt to prevent this sensitive information from being released. To be honest, the only thing on my hard-drive is hardcore pornography so I can empathise with MI6 here. God knows what I'd do if my computer was stolen because I'm seriously prepared to kill if anyone even glances towards my browsing history. 

After a destructive motorbike chase, Bond quickly finds himself fighting the thief on the top of a moving train as a fellow agent tries to snipe the assailant from afar. Under M's orders, Bond’s colleague takes a shot, misses the target and accidentally hits him. When I worked as a wedding videographer, the only way I could fuck my job up as much as this would have been if I was caught shaft deep inbetween the bride’s tits. The rest of the film is therefore M's attempt to repair the reputation of MI6, correct the mistake of shooting Bond and avoid the threat of a forced retirement. I don't want to call M incompetent but with Ralph Fiennes walking around, she also seems to have missed the fact that her department has been successfully infiltrated by Lord Voldemort using only a prosthetic nose as a disguise. What a stupid, useless bitch!

Considering that most people would feel short-changed if this was the end, I think it's obvious that 007 doesn't die in the first five minutes. Instead he decides to take a little time out to recuperate on a relaxing sandy beach. We rarely see Bond on holiday so it's interesting to watch what he gets up to. As it turns out he enjoys getting wankered, pissing about with scorpions and fucking people. I'm not a travel agent but I think that's called the 'Charlie Sheen Package'.
 

After an attack on MI6 headquarters, Bond decides to return to work. The stolen hard-drive from the beginning has come back to haunt them and the culprit appears to have some personal vendetta against M. It's not revealed why yet but I suspect it's probably that he saw the Judi Dench fingering scene in Notes on a Scandal. Unfortunately for her, 007 is now out of shape and needs retraining. Since being shot a couple of times, he can now only run several miles, do a few hundred sit ups and really struggles at a few measly pull ups. What a lazy, fat bastard he is!

In the twenty-three films released so far, it seems that there are two kinds of Bond film. There's the slightly more grounded ones like Live and Let Die and then there are the bat-shit crazy ones like Moonraker. I know every Bond film is technically a fantasy but there are obviously various degrees of it. 007 verses the drugs trade is quite grounded whereas Roger Moore riding a hover gondola past the double-take pigeon isn't. On a scale of zero-to-'what the fuck', I'd say that interestingly Skyfall is heading back into the more fantastical kind of Bond film. Personally I don't have a problem with this so long as they stay in control by continuing to hire respectable directors. Sam Mendes proved his credibility when he won an Oscar for American Beauty, a film which brilliantly depicted a man having a midlife crisis. Lee Tamahori helmed Die Another Day and has since been arrested for dressing up as a woman and trying to charge random men for a shag. No prizes for guessing which of those two had the better insight into the mind of James Bond.

One of the more fantastical elements of Skyfall is of course the crazed villain Raoul Silva. Played by Javier Bardem, he's a bit like a cross between Hannibal Lecter, The Joker and Quentin Crisp. I won't reveal too much about him except to say he's brilliant and proper full-on gay. As far as I know, there hasn't been a male villain who threatens Bond with sex since Grace Jones fucked him in A View to a Kill. Each Bond villain in the Daniel Craig films has had a disability and Skyfall is no exception. Again, I won't reveal it, except to say it's worse than Le Chiffre's bleeding eye but not as awful as Dominic Greene being French.

The other thing that I really loved about Skyfall was just how much of it was set in Britain. There's always been an odd relationship between Bond and Batman and there's no denying that this film borrows from The Dark Knight. The shots of Bond surveying London from the rooftops are iconically similar to Batman guarding his city of Gotham and there's a downbeat tone suggesting that not everyone will survive. Bond’s dead parents also get highlighted and used as the motivation for his life a little like Batman's always were. I think it's strange that being an orphan would make Bond want to become a spy as both my parents are alive and nothing could drive me to kill more than them. None of these comparisons are a criticism either by the way, as Nolan has made a career out of pilfering from 007 in the first place. To be honest I think if that fucker tries to take anything else from Bond he should be punished and forced to direct the next film in the franchise. That'd teach the talented little shit a lesson!

It was always obvious that Mendes would be able to handle the drama of a Bond film but the question was ‘could he do the action too?’ So far the closest thing he's done to this is Jarhead which follows a gulf war soldier who, in an act of pure visual cinema, didn't kill a single bloody person. I hate to reveal my own mental issues but if Bond hasn't fucked and killed some dumb broad within the first hour then I'm really not happy. It's not that I'm a sexist, it's just that he is and I'm a little afraid of any change whatsoever. Luckily however, Mendes knows this and so deals with the death and destruction in a suitably nonchalant way. At one point there's a game of 'shoot the bottle off a girls head' followed by a brilliant, cold-hearted and fucked up quip from Bond. To be honest I'm glad the quips are making a return as from 007's previous one liners, it's obvious that like Fatty Arbuckle, he's always going to be known for being more of a killer than a comedian. However nothing beats a man with a prosthetic hand struggling to remove a watch before Roger Moore angrily calls him a “Butterhook”.

The other great thing that Mendes did was bring over his regular cinematographer Roger Deakins. For anyone that doesn't know, a cinematographer is simply the guy who hangs the lights up and makes a film look all pretty and shit. In terms of the people doing that job, Deakins is one of the best and a genuine genius. Being a reserved and gentle Brit, he's also one of the better DoP's that's not stupid enough to slag off The Avengers and piss off the fanboys. His inclusion on Skyfall is an act of sheer brilliance with this clearly now being the most visually impressive Bond film ever. Thinking about it, I'd probably say that the Shanghai sequence was so beautiful that with it's neon lighting I swear they must have invented some brand new colours for us.

There's also a shadowy noir feel to Skyfall that creates a blanket of mood so heavy it could almost smother Bond himself. In fact, the end of the movie looks so gloomy and haunted that it almost becomes the Bond equivalent of Straw Dogs. Just for clarification though, I mean that in terms of style and tone and not the occurrence of a randomly indulgent rape scene. It took us long enough to accept a blonde Bond so I think it'll be a few more years before we allow him to become a full blown sex offender. Whether he gets consent or not however, I do think it's about time Q branch started supplying him with standard issue condoms. If they designed some of those novelty luminous ones, Deakins could probably control that too and make a sex scene look like some sort of fucking poetic lightsaber fight.

If I have a criticism with Sam Mendes's usual team here, then it would probably be with the hiring of composer Thomas Newman. It's not that the music wasn't good but rather it was possibly too obviously his own. Half the film sounded like American Beauty and then every so often the Bond theme would unsubtly kick in. There was scenes in which Bond was talking to Silva and it genuinely felt like Chris Cooper was going to walk in and shoot them because of his own repressed homosexuality. Having said that though and because I'm really, really cool, I've just spent the last few hours repeatedly listening to the score and it does sound great. Maybe it just felt a little jarring at first because I'm used to the sound of regular Bond composer David Arnold being here. Like I said before, I'm not a fan of change so maybe this will be a grower. I know that the film isn't perfect but I'm genuinely struggling to find anything negative I want to say about it and that was the closest I could think of…

Daniel Craig's ears looked particularly massive but that's not really a fault of the film. If anything they'd probably even help Bond as a spy by acting as a pair of huge, meaty satellites. In fact you know what? Fuck it. The film is genuinely fucking brilliant and probably the best thing I've seen this year. I've been a huge fan of the franchise ever since I was old enough to support the weight of my own head and so this film was as enjoyable and appealing to me as pregnancy is to underage trailer-trash. It's nice to see too, that Craig is settling into the role with the kind of comfort that's going to ensure that every one of his successors will be one day compared to him. Judi Dench was also so stupidly good in this that she's officially become the first and best Bond Woman. She plays the vulnerable but confident surrogate Mum to both Bond and Silva with the two brothers fighting to protect and kill her. It's nice to know that the plot of Skyfall is kept very British and is clearly an adaptation of The Jeremy Kyle Show.  

In a way, Skyfall almost feels like it could, in an alternate world, be the reboot film that Casino Royale turned out to be. Its basic theme seems to be looking at how relevant Bond is in this modern world and then asking if we could get by without him. In fact that the whole set up can be summed up by Bond and M's first exchange in Goldeneye. She accuses him of being a, “Sexist, misogynist, Dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War!” before admitting that, “If you think for one moment I don't have the balls to send a man out to die, your instincts are dead wrong”. To her cold hearted credit she at least can't be accused of being two faced!

Skyfall spends its duration subtly and lovingly hinting towards 007's past films and upbringing and then like a twat, rather bluntly burns it all to the ground. By the end of this film, Bond is as complete, fresh and attachment free as Sean Connery's was at the start of Dr No. As far as last scenes go, Skyfall's is almost fifty years in the making and has created a level of excitement not felt since Batman Begins revealed the Joker card. The franchise has being going for half a century and the line; “He'll see you now” has ensured a freshness of direction that makes the sequel just too exciting to think about. Is Bond still relevant? Relevant's got nothing to do with it. Bond has an unexplainable and ingrained sense of loyalty to his country and so do we, to him. It's a similar relationship that fatties share with cake and lard.

For as long as they make films, Bond will be around with each new adventure being treated with the excitement and sense of occasion that they genuinely deserve. Perhaps the character has been a little lost since the Cold War ended, but finally with Skyfall he knows where he is and has found his place in our world. That's definitely more than can be said of hairy man-tit David Hasselhoff and he's still got a career. Five decades since the first film and I'm already looking forward to being in the queue for Bond 24. If there's two things us Brits love, it's a Bond movie and a good queue. Throw in a cup of tea and some repressed sexual urges and you've got yourself a perfect Saturday night. Is Skyfall the best Bond? Maybe- I'm just glad that we've now got twenty-three to choose from and there's a chance that it could be.

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Heath's Legend

Two-thousand and twelve is going to be a great year for two reasons; firstly there are so many exciting films coming out that each month looks like it's going to consist of an obligatory trip to the cinema. We've got The Avengers, The Hobbit, Skyfall, The Amazing Spiderman, Prometheus and probably most excitingly of all The Dark Knight Rises. Just thinking about all that makes me want to violently sacrifice something like a small animal or ageing crack whore to the God of geeks as thanks. Secondly however, and much more excitingly, we've been assured by a very reliable source that the world is going to end by next December. I've seen enough apocalypse movies to know how to survive if that does happen and like in The Road, I've concluded that I'm going to become a cannibal. On the one hand I'll get a decent meal and on the other I'll get to punish any cheeky member of the public who dared survive. A lot of people have bought Transformers 3... logically, our species deserves to die.

So like I say, mass killings aside, I am looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises. I genuinely think that Christopher Nolan is a genius, and in terms of his future reputation? Our generation's Hitchcock. Unlike Michael Bay and Bret Ratner, Nolan is a man of intelligence and every one of his films has been an achievement worthy of cinema history. Inception proved that blockbusters don't have to cater to morons to make money and Insomnia proved that Robin Williams can actually act. I never knew why people didn't find Mrs. Doubtfire weird as it's a film in which a man dresses up as a woman to gain entry into his ex-wife's house. That plot suggests to me that Robin Williams has been taking parenting tips from Cape Fear's murdering stalker 'Max Cady'. Williams is, unintentionally, a very creepy man- Nolan's genius was in noticing this and capitalising on it.

When I heard that Nolan had cast Heath Ledger as 'The Joker' I was genuinely excited. Since the day I was spat out at birth, I've been a huge fan of Batman and I think that anyone who likes Batman loves 'The Joker'. In my opinion the Clown Prince of Crime is one of our planet's greatest fictional characters along with James Bond, Tyler Durden and Jesus... Just kidding about Jesus. I'm not doubting that he's fictional, I just find him a little less rounded than somebody like say Die Hard's John McClane. Both Jesus and McClane have been through a lot and both remind me of Christmas, it's just that McClane didn't have an almighty parent to rely on. Without God's help I'd like to see Jesus take on terrorists in the Nakatomi Tower. The day JC throws Alan Rickman out of a window is the day he makes the list of truly great fictional characters. Having said that, I did enjoy him in Mel Gibson's mental gorefest The Passion of Christ. I suppose he should get some bonus points for the beatings he received, saving mankind and starring in his very own Die Hard On A Crucifix. But when you think about it; although McClane hasn't endured half of the torture that Christ was put through, he also wasn't stupid enough to get caught... And he looked better in a vest.

Anywho, so back to The Joker... When it was announced that it would be Ledger tasked with bringing the anarchic uber-villian to life, I decided to research. At the time, I was pretty much a Ledger virgin as I hadn't seen that much that he'd done. There were two things I was aware of; his performance in Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm and that he was just too good looking. The kind of good looking which is just annoying and makes me want to hack off my own face just so I have some sort of weapon to try to damage his own face with.

From watching The Brothers Grimm however, it was clear that his looks were just as annoying to him as they were to me. Ledger was a man who wanted to be taken seriously as an actor and do things that he would be artistically proud of. You don't star in a Gilliam movie to get rich or be seen by a lot of people. By working with the under appreciated and seemingly cursed genius that is Gilliam, Ledger was as good as announcing his desire to obtain credibility. The fact that the film went on to be compromised by the bullish and wrongly opinionated Weinsteins was a huge shame. It's a good film in my opinion, and I think his performance in it is nothing short of hilarious. It is unfortunately most notable though, for the troubles it went through and being the start of a friendship between Ledger and Gilliam, that would thankfully see them work together again in the future.

In my investigations into the newly announced Joker, it seemed there would be one film I would have to see and that was Brokeback Mountain. I say 'have to' not because I was reluctant, but because it simply seemed like it was a vital step in his career and apparently a good film to boot. At the time of purchasing that DVD and with its reputation, I felt like I was buying large-budget gay porn. I'm not homophobic in the slightest, but purchasing the gay cowboy film in public was an awkward experience. In 2007, I was 18 years old and part of an all boys school so being caught in that shop with that film would have been social suicide. As rumours spread, it would be the equivalent of being caught in the bushes taking a clumpy face full of 'Wham' spunk whilst licking my lips and shouting 'I'm your man!'. Thankfully though I got away with it, reputation unscathed, and was rewarded with one of the most misrepresented, beautiful movies that I've ever seen.

It's not a gay cowboy film in the slightest. I mean sure, they might have a bit of bum sex and a quick smooch, but that's about it. In fact they don't even share that much screen time really, and the sphincter-loving is purely PG-rated with not a jizz-shot in sight. Because of the times, the two characters are forced to move apart and so what the film actually is, is a study of two men being forced to live a lie. With its gay focused reputation, you'd think this film was a John Waters movie about Dale Winton fisting Elton John whist wearing a stetson hat. Instead, you get one of the most heart breaking movies as both Ledger and Gyllenhaal's characters react differently to the realisation that they can never be who they are or enjoy the life that would make them happy. To describe the scene at the end as Ledger holds the blue shirt as 'a little emotional' would be an understatement. I can watch all those romantic, sentimental, schmaltzy pieces of shit like The Notebook and feel nothing but hatred for everyone involved. I'm pretty sure that I can't watch Brokeback Mountain without crying. Not that that's gay by the way, to cry during this movie. Anne Hathaway gets her tits out and I loved that, so fuck you.

By this point, I was starting to become a fan and my anticipation to see The Dark Knight was rising (fuck you too, pun!). Currently at the cinema was the weird Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, and so along with a Zimmerman obsessed chum I headed down to watch it. The film has a great cast and in terms of portraying the nasally one's mannerisms and appearance, there's no doubt that Cate Blanchett nails it both perfectly and creepily, however it was Ledger that impressed me the most. There was just something about his downbeat, almost melancholic performance that grabbed me more than the others. Like I say, Blanchett was brilliant, as were Bale, Whishaw and the little black kid. Richard Gere wasn't the best but even he wasn't as irritating as usual. I always think if you're going to cast Richard Gere: stop, think about it, and then cast Jeff Bridges instead. Same kind of guy but Bridges abides more and squints less. Then again I'd probably squint if I had a gerbil up my arse. The fucking pervert!

Anyway, so out of the cinema I walked, talking about how excited I was about Ledger. I told my friend about what I'd seen him do and how The Dark Knight was going to have the definitive Joker performance. I don't dislike Jack Nicholson's version but lets face it, he is just playing Jack Nicholson but with green hair and a grin. This was going to be something different and something special.

A few days later I got up, switched on the morning TV and started to eat my shitty cardboard-y cereal. The words that greeted me were, “and so comes the sad news from Hollywood that the actor...”, I swear to God and I know nobody will believe me, but the words at this point in my head were, 'Please don't say Heath Ledger'. I looked at Fiona Phillips of GMTV in that split second, dreading what name that crooked, messenger of doom was about to deliver. I hoped to God it was going to be Rob Schneider, Steven Seagal or some other useless sack of shit that I wouldn't miss. She finished her sentence, “and so comes the sad news from Hollywood that the actor Heath Ledger has died”. The spiteful bitch had said the one name I'd hoped she wouldn't and I was shocked. I sat there for a minute frozen with the spoon halfway towards my mouth trying to process what I'd just heard. Then I looked for proof that the ugly cow was lying. I checked the internet and other channels but all seemed to be saying the same thing. That was a shit day.

When he died, I felt that we'd been robbed. Obviously I didn't know him but I was starting to learn his work and he was quickly running up the ranks of my favourite actors. From this point on, there would be no more Heath Ledger films and no more performances from someone who for all we know could have been the greatest actor the world has ever seen. Or maybe he would have gone mad and killed a load of rent boys or something, the point is; we'll never know. I read a story in the paper about a family that was broken into and tied up by a group of thieves who then stripped their home of their possessions. The day Heath Ledgers future films were stolen from me I knew exactly how they felt. Maybe even worse, as at least they could claim on the insurance.

My excitement for The Dark Knight was now tainted. Rather than awe, sadness would what fills me when watching his last mainstream role. Sadness that he'd died and sadness that if he was amazing in the role there would be no chance of him replaying it in a sequel that would surely follow. I'm sure the way I felt however in no way compared to that of his friends, family, Christopher Nolan or Terry Gilliam.

Ledger had finished filming with Nolan when he died but that still left the peerless director in an editing studio forced to watch various cuts of his now dead friend. Gilliam, however, was in the middle of filming The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus when he lost his main protagonist. He was forced to deal with the loss whilst at the same time having to decide what he wanted to do with his movie. Luckily for Gilliam however, his team encouraged him to carry on and the remaining Ledger scenes were filmed with new actors. Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Collin Farrell all jumped in to help finish what had been started. Their wage was donated to Ledgers daughter with the film becoming a tribute to his work and memory. It's hard to imagine that kind of thing happening if it had been someone like David Hasselhoff that had snuffed it. In his case, I think the most dignified thing we could all do would be to eat a burger off the bathroom floor whilst pissed out of our minds and enduring a minute silence. It would be a fitting tribute to a novelty-human that we don't care about.

Slowly, July rolled through the calendar and with apprehensive and subdued eagerness, the world finally got a chance to watch The Dark Knight. For two and a half hours, everybody that saw it sat there in awe at the complex, crime masterpiece that Nolan had cooked up for us. There are so many things perfect about that movie that you could sit and discuss them for hours (if you were a geek, who talked to himself and had too much spare time... and wrote blogs about it). One of the elements that was revolutionary however was, predictably, Heath Ledger as 'The Joker'.

From the opening shot of 'The Joker' standing by the roadside as the camera slowly tracks into his mask we knew that this is an important role in an important film played by an important actor. Ledgers death certainly adds an inevitable sadness to the film but it also brings a certain weight to the character. Rimming Donnie Darko aside, this would be the performance that Ledger is now going to be remembered for and defined by. Ironically, having seen the film, the same can now be said of 'The Joker'.

Ledger was so good as the character that his portrayal will become the bench mark for anybody else in the future who attempts it. He glides about the film revelling in joyous anarchy, no motive beyond causing trouble and seemingly having slipped into this 12a from an 18 certificate movie. In 1989 we had Jack Nicholson in a purple coat. In 2008 we had a shambolic Alex DeLarge, a grungy clown with a war painted face and a knife stained in blood. The character was first created in 1940 and a mere 68 years later Nolan and Ledger brought his most faithful depiction to the big screen. Gone were the more cartoonish, zany elements that we had previously seen, instead being replaced by a deranged sociopath with believably high intelligence, a taste for chaos and a pleasure for killing people in creatively gory but simple ways. The moment he rams somebody’s eye into the point of a pencil is the moment you know we're into unpredictable, “shit just got real!” territory.

The fact that Ledger was posthumously nominated for an Oscar and then won was a great tribute to the work he'd done. Cynical people could claim he only won because he'd died but then those cynical people can go fuck themselves with a chainsaw. The Oscars is a sham as it is. Biased voting, the simple bullshit of one film being definitively better than another and the possibility of a different best film and best director winner. What, the best film directed itself, did it? The Oscars are a pretentious, self important marketing tool aimed at making more money for films which win but often don't deserve to. In 1976, Rocky beat Taxi Driver to the best film of the year. Beyond “stupidly cunting wrong”, I can't think of a swear word harsh enough to sum up that decision. However, Ledgers Oscar was genuine, well deserved and simply a nice tribute to what he'd done. It is all shit, but if someone has to win that stupid golden dildo then it deserved to be him. Regardless of anything else, such as his acting or death, he earned it simply for being more impressive than the hype surrounding his performance as a character that is older and more well known than most humans.

This, however, was not the end to the story. We still had The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus to look forward to and thankfully, it too was great. Without going too much into that film, it was clear that Ledger by now had found his voice. Throughout his whole early career, he had been battling to have his integrity respected more than his face; finally at this point he was taken seriously. It's a huge shame that he wasn't able to complete the role, but ironically the random cameos from the three other A-listers work really well. So well, in fact, that you can't help but wonder if the film actually benefited from him being suddenly unavailable. Although there are less permanent ways of this being the case than simply dying. Maybe he could have just gotten temporarily lost in some woods or something. I think I'd have preferred it if that had been the reason, to be honest. He was an Aussie, they're used to living with nature and killing animals and shit. Just look at 'Mick Dundee' or Steve Irwin. Born survivors, both of them.

I feel at this point that I'm well caught up with the films of Mr. Heath Ledger. Since hearing he was to be 'The Joker', I've become a huge fan and I genuinely still mourn for the talent that was snatched from our world. At this point, there is only one film of his that I haven't seen and genuinely do want to, and that's Candy. I doubt I will ever see it though, simply because I don't like knowing that there's no more of his films out there to be excited about. If I can avoid it, there will always be that one more to catch up with.

During the writing of this I've been trying to come up with a fitting last statement. I wanted it to be something sincere, heartwarming and something that genuinely summed up how I felt about him. What I came up with was:

The talent might be gone, but evidence of his genius remains in his work. 

I wish he hadn't died- it should have been Michael Bay.

...And you can quote me on that.

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Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.

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